deprecate seed functions in random base classes (Discrete Continuous)?

[Peter]

random::RNG has two seed functions seed and seed_from_devurandom. For some reason these functions also exists in the interface of base classes Discrete and Continuous. IMHO, it is sufficient to have these functions in RNG so we should deprecate them in other classes.

Setting the seed through RNG is preferable because it makes it clearer that it is a global change. Setting it through an individual instance of, for example, class Gaussian might be misleading as it it looks as it only affects the instance.

Any objections?

[Jari Häkkinen]

The removal depends on whether we retain singleton implementation of RNG. With the current implementation they could be removed. If we decide to allow several RNGs for thread safety and efficiency then they should be kept.

Doing sequence analyses with yat might require thread safe random number generation since multi-thread programming is needed.

It is easy to add them later if needed ... remove them.

[Peter]

I noticed that both in RNG as well as the two other classes the seed function is const while seed_from_devurandom is not const.

[Peter]

(In [2578]) deprecate seed functions. closes #674